


A Mother’s Love… Or Lack Thereof

by gayngels



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff, LGBTQ Themes, Love Confessions, M/M, May I offer you some fluff in these trying times, Mutual Pining, Terrible terrible self indulgent fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23535025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayngels/pseuds/gayngels
Summary: “I don’t hate Her, you know.”“What was that, dear?”“Her… I don’t hate Her.” This time Crowley’s voice was loud enough to hear, even if it did waver slightly.“Oh.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 82





	A Mother’s Love… Or Lack Thereof

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not much of a writer and I've never written fanfiction before, but I had this idea and it just would not leave me alone and I have a lot of quarantine related free time at the moment, so here it is! Hope you like it!

It was another unremarkable day after the world didn’t end, where, as usual, a certain angel and demon were passing the hours in a little bookshop in SoHo. 

Aziraphale sat at the front counter, trying to at least pretend to be working, even while his nose was firmly buried in a book. However, considering there were exactly zero customers in the shop, there was not much need for the pretense. Crowley, on the other hand, had taken to sprawling on the couch in the back room, indulging in an afternoon nap while the angel “worked.”

Generally, the bell above the shop door ringing would not turn an unremarkable day into a remarkable one. After all, one or two customers were known to come into the shop and invoke Aziraphale’s angelic wrath on occasion. This time, however, the person who entered the shop didn’t fit the archetype that Aziraphale had come to expect of the people who terrorized his books. No, this person was young, perhaps 16 or 17, with shoulder length dark hair and a rather baggy sweater on. 

None of these details were what truly grabbed Aziraphale’s attention though. No, what made Aziraphale take particular note of this person was the panicked anxiety that seemed to radiate off them in waves. 

The young person glanced briefly at Aziraphale, barely meeting his eyes, before hurriedly shuffling off around some bookcases, out of the angel’s line of sight.

While still slightly worried about the emotions he had picked up from the young person, after almost an hour passed without seeing hide nor hair of them from his perch at the till, it began to slip the angel's mind. After all, this person didn’t seem overly interested in actually _purchasing_ anything, so Aziraphale had no qualms about letting them pass the afternoon among his books.

-

As afternoon shifted into evening, Aziraphale began to close the shop so he and Crowley could make their reservations for the Ritz for later that night. 

After spending a few moments poking around bookshelves, Aziraphale finally spotted the young person from before sitting curled up peacefully in a corner between a bookcase and the wall with their face shoved deep in one of Aziraphale’s more modern books, seemingly lost within the pages. 

A small smile graced the angel’s lips; he always appreciated when others shared his love of literature (so long as there was none of that ‘purchasing’ nonsense involved). As much as he enjoyed the scene in front of him, it was getting late and he was starting to get peckish for dinner, so he walked towards the person huddled in the corner.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but we will be closing up in just a few min-”

He faltered mid-word as the young person’s eyes shot up from the book, the panic and anxiety back full force as they stared fearfully up at Aziraphale.

The angel, not quite sure as to how to handle this particular reaction, spoke again.

“...Is everything quite alright?” he asked, his voice wavering slightly.

The young person immediately scrambled to their feet, placing the borrowed book back on the shelf next to them. Their eyes remained fixed firmly on the wood floor, avoiding Aziraphale’s concerned gaze. 

“I... I-I’m sorry, sir.” They stammered in a flustered rush as their hands began to fiddle with the hem of their sweater. “I didn’t mean to bother. I’m sorry, I… I’m sorry.”

Still avoiding eye contact, the young person tried to rush past the angel, shuffling their way quickly towards the front door to the shop. Aziraphale whirled around, placing a soft hand on the young person's shoulder, stopping them in their tracks and gently turning them back around to face him. 

“You haven’t been a bother in the slightest, my dear, but, please, tell me what’s causing you such distress.”

By this point, the bookshop’s resident demon had taken notice of the commotion, rose from his sprawled position on the couch and started to slink his way over towards the human and the angel. 

“I…” the person started. Still looking at the floor and, curling in on themselves and trying to look as small, and take up as little space, as possible.

“I don’t know where to go,” they finished after an uncertain pause.

“Oh,” the angel said, “Are you lost? Perhaps my friend over in the back room can help you. I hear mobile phones have maps these days”

“No… I-I meant… I don’t _have_ anywhere to go, sir… I got kicked out… I told my mum that I’m…” They tried to force out words between stops and starts, voice getting progressively softer. “...She said she “wouldn’t tolerate a queer under her roof.” Didn’t want me “corrupting the new baby” or something... I just got up and left. Ran. Not even really sure which direction to be totally honest. I don’t have my phone or wallet or anything… I saw your shop was open so I came in for something to take my mind off it for a bit but I... I don’t know where to go.”

Now, _this_ Aziraphale had not been prepared for. His eyes were wide, filled with shock and a hint of anger at the horrible treatment this innocent young person had been subjected to.

“Oh… Oh my dear child, I... You...Oh dear”

Thankfully Crowley chose that moment to step in, saving the angel from having to stumble and stutter through what would likely turn out to be a rather incoherent response. 

“Do you have a friend or family member who lives around here that could help you for tonight? A safe place to stay?” The demon cut in gently. “Like he said, you can use my phone to call whoever you need” he continued as he fished his phone out of the pocket of his trousers. “And don’t worry, we won’t close the shop just yet. You’re welcome here until you can find somewhere safe for the night.”

The young person stared at Crowley blankly for a moment.

“My… My friend lives not too far from here… If I could call and check if she’s home, I-”

They hadn’t a chance to finish their sentence before the demon was handing over his unlocked phone.

-

After a short phone call, it was determined that the young person's friend was in fact home, and that she would start setting up her guest bedroom. The young person handed the phone back to Crowley as much of the tension in their demeanor was replaced with exhaustion.

“Thank you very much, sirs.” They stammered out, still refusing to make prolonged eye contact with either being. “I… I’m so sorry, but is there any way I could borrow a couple of pounds f-for the bus? I can come and pay you back tomorrow, I swear, I’ll find some money, I just... It’s too far to walk and it’s getting late and-”

“Don’t even think about it,” Crowley interrupted. “My cars out front. I’ll drop you off. Come on.” At that he turned on his heel and sauntering towards the front door of the bookshop.

It took the young person a moment to fully catch up to what Crowley had said, and they finally turned their eyes up to meet Aziraphale’s, hesitantly. With a brief reassuring look from the angel, the young person scurried off, following the demon out the bookshop door. 

-

In the twenty or so minutes that it took for Crowley to get back to the bookshop, Aziraphale's shock from that afternoon’s events had mostly worn off, and left mainly anger and confusion behind. He busied himself with closing up the shop, locking the door and turning the sign over before he began flitting around aimlessly trying to keep himself occupied.

The bell above the locked door rang again as the lanky demon stalked through, making straight for the couch in the back room before slumping down onto it and heaving a heavy tired sigh as he ran his hands over his face.

“I just simply can’t understand!” Exclaimed the angel, pacing circles through the piles of books strewn around the demon laden couch in the back room. He couldn’t seem to get his nerves under control, with his hands rapidly flitting between fluttering about in front of him and clasping each other tightly behind his back.

“What kind of parent? How could anyone do that to another person, let alone their own child!?” As he went on his voice was getting progressively louder as he tried to wrap his head around the events from that afternoon. “Throwing your own child out onto the street with no regard for their safety and wellbeing! Let alone the mental toll that must take on a young person… And on top of that, they did nothing wrong! Absolutely nothing! Punished for simply being themselves! For being who the Almighty made them!... Anyone who could behave in such a way has no right to call themselves a parent. All that child’s mother has done is sown the seeds for anger and pain and resentment and hatred in a relationship that should be based upon unconditional love and acceptance!” 

After a few minutes of solid, mildly cathartic, ranting, Aziraphale spared a glance at the demon still lying on his couch. At some point during the angel's tirade Crowley had removed his sunglasses and was staring blankly up at the ceiling from his sprawled position. Even while he looked up towards the ceiling he seemed more to be staring through it rather than actually examining the wooden beams above his head.

Aziraphale, a little concerned seeing his demon look so unusually vacant, put an end to his nervous pacing and turned fully toward the couch.

“My dear, are you alright? I didn’t mean to ramble on like that.”

“M’fine, angel. Just… Thinking s’all.”

“Oh, well then,” started Aziraphale as he came over and plopped down on the chair next to the couch by Crowley’s head. Now, Aziraphale, of course, knew this particular demon to be nice and kind underneath the thick layer of suave scoundrel that he tried to hide behind, but his gentleness and eagerness to help the young person from earlier had come off as rather uncharacteristic to the angel and he wanted to take the opportunity to address the unusual response before the demon buried any feelings about the incident deep down inside himself never to be seen again. 

“Penny for your thoughts, my dear?”

Crowley remained unmoving, staring through the ceiling almost as if he hadn’t heard the angel. After a few moments, right when Aziraphale’s hands were about to start fidgeting again, the demon opened his mouth the tiniest bit and let out barely a mumble.

“I don’t hate Her, you know.” 

“What was that, dear?”

“ _Her_ … I don’t hate Her.” This time Crowley’s voice was loud enough to hear, even if it did waver slightly.

“Oh.”

This was very much not where Aziraphale had expected this conversation to go. Crowley almost never talked about Heaven or God, let alone a statement like that. 

“Oh… But I would have thought demons-”

“I know, angel, I know, I get it,” the demon cut him off, not taking his eyes away from the ceiling.

A silence followed for a little over a minute. A pensive silence for the demon, and an uncomfortable one for the angel. 

“Sometimes I hate that I don’t hate Her. Feel like I should, ya know? After everything, I _should_ hate Her but…I don’t know, I can’t bring myself to, not completely anyway… I can’t do it… Of course, I’m upset and hurt about all that business with the Fall but… I guess some part of me won’t let me hate Her.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were wide as dinner plates at this confession and unusual moment of vulnerability from the normally prickly demon. This was a side of Crowley he rarely saw and Aziraphale knew he needed to handle it as gently as he could manage.

“My dear, you know I am always here to listen to anything that’s bothering you or on your mind, and I appreciate you trusting me enough to discuss something so sensitive but… If I could ask… What brought this up? Has something happened? Has Hell tried to contact you?”

Crowley gave a small chuckle at the angel’s concern, though it seemed hollow. Not as playful and mischievous as Aziraphale was used to.

“No, angel, no one’s contacted me. I just… I’m glad that that kid has a friend to lean on. Tha’s’all”

Now Aziraphale’s head was definitely starting to spin from the leaps from topic to topic that Crowley seemed to be making in this conversation.

“‘S a shitty thing to go through, getting kicked out is.” The demon continued. “‘Specially on your own, so I’m just glad they have someone else looking out for them.” 

Aziraphale realized then that his corporation had stopped breathing. He thought its heart might have stopped too if that wouldn’t have led to a very inconvenient discorporation. The seemingly disconnected puzzle pieces from that evening suddenly fell into place. Why Crowley was so eager to help the young person earlier. Why he seemed distant when Aziraphale was ranting against the young person’s mother’s actions. Why he had suddenly brought up the Fall…and…Their Mother… 

Aziraphale felt sick.

“You… You were... She...Oh... Oh _Crowley_ … Oh my dear, darling boy. I-I’ve never thought about it like that.” 

Tears were pricking uncomfortably at Aziraphale’s eyes and a deep heart wrenching sadness mingled with the sick feeling. He tried to meet Crowley’s eyes but the demon still had that blank, far off look pointed up towards the ceiling.

That expression on his dear demon’s face set something off in Aziraphale. He felt something within him snap as he came to an earth-shattering realization.

“She’s wrong,” he said. 

She’s wrong... She’s wrong. The Almighty, God, the omnipotent, omniscient, creator of the universe, their Mother… was wrong. She had kicked Crowley, Her child, out of Heaven for no crime other than being himself, being who She made him. She had done exactly what the young person’s mother did. Seeing the empty hollow expression that barely hid the pain on Crowley's face, Aziraphale knew for a fact that She was wrong. He couldn’t justify holding a double standard on this topic, not even for God Herself, not when it came to his sweet, dorky, kind-hearted, lovable, nice demon. 

She had decided that Crowley was unworthy of love just for being himself, for being as She had made him. And She was wrong.

As soon as he registered the words that came out of the angel’s mouth, Crowley finally moved from his slouched position on the couch, sitting bolt upright and whipping his head around, staring intensely at Aziraphale with wary narrow slitted eyes.

“Aziraphale, you can’t say stuff like that, you’ll fall”

“My dear,” the angel started, giving a rather sad, half-hearted chuckle, “I think if I were going to fall I would have done so already. After all, it seems that I’ve been disobeying Her judgement in regards to you for a very long time and haven’t been punished for it.” This met with a rather confused, but still wary, look from the demon. “My dear,” the angel explained, “by casting you out She deemed you unworthy of love, and… And yet I’ve loved you for centuries and here I sit before you, still an angel.” 

Crowley didn’t move, still staring intently at Aziraphale who was now staring rather intently at his hands clasped in his lap.

“You… You love me.” 

It was more of a bewildered statement than a question, but Aziraphale answered anyway.

“Yes, my dear, of course I do.” He looked over at Crowley, offering a timid, slightly watery, smile.

Crowley sat there frozen in wide-eyed silence, trying to process the angel’s words after six bloody thousand years of what he thought was unrequited pining. After a few moments with no response from Crowley beyond a shocked expression, Aziraphale started to get slightly nervous. The fidgeting began again as he glanced down at his hands, worrying them in his lap. 

“I know my love pales in comparison to divine grace, and the love of the Almighty but...Nevertheless, you have it. Regardless of Her thoughts on the matter.”

This finally shook the demon out of his stupor, as he rushed to clumsily quell the angel’s anxiety. 

“Aziraphale, angel… Your love… Your love is-it’s… It’s worth more to me than any of that other nonsense. Divine grace, Her love, all of it.” His voice was teetering on the edge of frantic as he continued speaking, words tripping over each other to try to calm the teary angel. “Your love is worth so much more because it’s real, it's genuine. Unlike Her and Heaven, you actually mean it...I’ve spent six thousand bloody years trying to justify to myself that I don’t downright hate Her, but I never have to even think about justifying my love for you! All you’ve ever done is spend time with me, and care for me, unconditionally, no strings attached, even if I may have been too stupid to recognize it for what it was at times…” A regretful day in Saint James’ park and an anguished night outside a club in SoHo resurfaced in both of their minds at that comment. “You’ve never asked me to change who I am for you and we’re a bloody angel and a demon! Hereditary enemies and all that nonsense… Hell, you know what? If She came down Herself right now into this bookshop and offered to make me an angel again, restore my grace, Her love, the whole shebang, in exchange for never seeing you again… Never seeing you fidget your hands when you’re nervous, or how the corners of your eyes crinkle when you smile at me when I bring you a pastry from that shop down the road you like, do you know what I’d tell Her? I’d tell her to stick Her love, and grace, and bloody worthless forgiveness right up her arse and piss off.”

The tears that had previously only been pricking Aziraphale’s eyes had started to stream down his cheeks like they had a very important train to catch. He stared at Crowley for a moment of overwhelmed silence before whispering in a voice so low it was barely there.

“You… You love me?”

“Course I do, angel… Have since the bloody beginning.” Crowley responded sheepishly. Even though he was clearly uncomfortable at the level of vulnerability in this conversation, shrinking in on himself as finished speaking spoke, Crowley didn’t break eye contact with Aziraphale. He was in far too deep to back out of this now.

“I… I couldn’t sense it.” Aziraphale choked out after a moment, shaking his head and glancing down at his fidgeting fingers. “I couldn’t sense your love for me. Nothing. I-I couldn’t sense anything from you. Perhaps it’s because you’re a demon, but I… I-I thought…I’d just assumed that you didn’t…” 

Aziraphale didn’t get the chance to finish that thought as Crowley abruptly stood up from the couch, took the two steps needed to stand in front of Aziraphale’s chair and dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around the angel’s middle, pulling him close in a bone crushingly tight hug. After a moment of mild shock, Aziraphale wound his arms around Crowley’s neck in return, burying his head in the crook of the demon’s neck. The tears that had been dripping down his face now soaking into the demon’s expensive jacket. 

They remained there for what felt like an eternity and yet still not nearly long enough, simply holding each. After what must have been several hours Aziraphale’s stomach gave a low rumble. 

“Oh shit, angel, we completely missed dinner, didn’t we? Should get you something to eat before you waste away,” The demon mumbled teasingly into Aziraphale’s ear. Despite his words his he didn’t relax his hold around the angel. 

“As much as I appreciate your concern, dear,” replied Aziraphale with an equal level of playful sarcasm. “I dare say, if given the choice between a fancy dinner at the Ritz or being right here with you, my decision is well and truly made.” With that, he squeezed his arms around the demon a little tighter, drawing a fond chuckle from Crowley. 

“Me too, angel.” Crowley mumbled as he snuggled his head into the crook of Aziraphale’s neck. “Me too.”


End file.
